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SCO's Next Target: SGI?
FatRatBastard writes "ZDNet News is speculating that SCO's next target in its legal actions against Linux may be SGI. According to the article its legal strategy will be to claim that XFS is a Unix derivative and therefore under SCO control, much like they claim JFS is in their suit with IBM. One fact not mentioned in the article that would support SGI being the next target is the malloc code they claimed was infringing at this years SCOForum was copyrighted SGI."
A link to ZDNet speculation about what might be SCO's next target. Slow news day? Needed another SCO fix?
"Sufferin' succotash."
And then they are going to bark at the Moon.
I'd sue Slashdot for all the stories about SCO. They're clearly trying to profit by SCO's active legal work.
Now, we can all agree that XFS is based on our own filesystem, famous for the stability and reliability that give you excellent uptimes when fsck time is included in that uptime measure. You don't get that kind of techonolgy for free, and it doesn't simply <fingerquote> evoooollllve </fingerquote> on its own. That SGI stole and released this is not up for debate. But that piece of invaluable IP isn't the issue here, really.
Where SGI has really chuffed our muffins is in having the gall to steal our valuable "long-run" technology. By only executing on outdated hardware, we've been able to keep system procurement prices down while effortlessly sustaining the user's reading and coffee time. In an attempt to muscle in on our territory however, SGI have chosen to stay the course with MIPS CPUs and confusingly outdated IRIX. Now, I know that the R5000 was once state of the art and all that, but the damned things are shipping in Playstation 2s. This, while SGI have the gall to tell customers that these are usable for graphics workstations.
Be the judge and jury on this one, my friends. Why would SGI opt to use this kind of dated processor and leaden IRX OS unless they too were trying to implement our patented "long-run" technology? How long before SGI manages to extend itself into the Linux culture; to prevent system upgrades and encourage ass backward architectures there as well? Soon, our "long-run" technology will be in use by customers the world over, and they will not be paying SCO's investors one penny, your honour.
Your honour -- Not One Penny.
Join the good fight. The good fight is the right fight. God has given me a mission, and my investors call me to it. God talks to me nightly. We are talking about my second home here, and I'll be damned if SGI is going to take that away. We are talking about stockholder value, precariously balanced atop press releases, IP confusion, lottery players, and the belief each buyer shares that there will be one more fool beyond him. We are talking about SCO's God-given right to go where no man has gone before, your honour.
One to beam up, Scotty.
Don't they sell Linux too ?
SCO VS SCO
ultimate deathmatch!
SCO said sometime ago that "their" NUMA code found in Linux, has come from SGI engineers working in the Linux kernel.1 055784622 054/0616_marshall.html
http://www.byte.com/documents/s=8276/byt
So, it is more than "speculation".
In for a dime, in for dollar...or a Trazillion dollars...how much are they asking for again?
You know, I'm fed up to (pointing well above head) here with lawsuits involving open-source software. Someone should tell SCO that *nix isn't the property of anyone, anything, or any corporation.
And why did you staple the trout to the RAM?
{sarcasm: semi-lame} It is true! SCO, she is the mother of all OSes, EVEN the ones that were invented before her! A temporal rift created an anti-time anomaly, sending SCO back before its creation to introduce lines of code in earlier OSes... {/sarcasm} bleh...
When they're done with SGI they'll probably track down Ken Thompson and try to claim that he somehow infringed their IP by writing UNIX in the first place. After all, anything and everything to do with UNIX is clearly SCO's by god-given right.
Morons.
"'I pass the test,' she said. 'I will diminish, and go into the West, and remain Galadriel.'"
- JRR Tolkien.
Microsoft announces plans to merge with SCO.
You're nothing; like me.
I for one cannot wait for the invoice to arrive from SCO and figure they are doing this because of the better drugs available in Utah because if they were still in Santa Cruz and given the easy availability of hallucinagins in that part of the world. There must be better drugs available in Utah.
that we'd see RICO (racketeer influenced corrupt organisation) charges brought against SCO (some corrupt organisation).
*sigh* A man can dream...
is here.
BoD
Well good to hear SGI is still with us. I thought they were goners...
We Love the SCO Information Minister is proud to now offer T-shirts and mugs through Cafe Press. Any proceeds will be split between our bandwidth costs and free software legal defense funds. Someone order something quick so we can find out if we need to provide alternate artwork :)
DEAR SIR/MADAM:
I AM MR. DARL MCBRIDE CURRENTLY SERVING AS THE PRESIDENT AND CHIEF EXECUTIVE OFFICER OF THE SCO GROUP, FORMERLY KNOWN AS CALDERA SYSTEMS INTERNATIONAL, IN LINDON, UTAH, UNITED STATES OF AMERICA. I KNOW THIS LETTER MIGHT SURPRISE YOUR BECAUSE WE HAVE HAD NO PREVIOUS COMMUNICATIONS OR BUSINESS DEALINGS BEFORE NOW.
MY ASSOCIATES HAVE RECENTLY MADE CLAIM TO COMPUTER SOFTWARES WORTH AN ESTIMATED $1 BILLION U.S. DOLLARS. I AM WRITING TO YOU IN CONFIDENCE BECAUSE WE URGENTLY REQUIRE YOUR ASSISTANCE TO OBTAIN THESE FUNDS. IN THE EARLY 1970S THE AMERICAN TELEPHONE AND TELEGRAPH CORPORATION DEVELOPED AT GREAT EXPENSE THE COMPUTER OPERATING SYSTEM SOFTWARE KNOWN AS UNIX. UNFORTUNATELY THE LAWS OF MY COUNTRY PROHIBITED THEM FROM SELLING THESE SOFTWARES AND SO THEIR VALUABLE SOURCE CODES REMAINED PRIVATELY HELD. UNDER A SPECIAL ARRANGEMENT SOME PROGRAMMERS FROM THE CALIFORNIA UNIVERSITY OF BERKELEY DID ADD MORE CODES TO THIS OPERATING SYSTEM, INCREASING ITS VALUE, BUT NOT IN ANY WAY TO DILUTE OR DISPARAGE OUR FULL AND RIGHTFUL OWNERSHIP OF THESE CODES, DESPITE ANY AGREEMENT BETWEEN AMERICAN TELEPHONE AND TELEGRAPH AND THE CALIFORNIA UNIVERSITY OF BERKELEY, WHICH AGREEMENT WE DENY AND DISAVOW. IN THE YEAR 1984 A CHANGE OF REGIME IN MY COUNTRY ALLOWED THE AMERICAN TELEPHONE AND TELEGRAPH CORPORATION TO MAKE PROFITS FROM THESE SOFTWARES. IN THE YEAR 1990 OWNERSHIP OF THESE SOFTWARES WAS TRANSFERRED TO THE CORPORATION UNIX SYSTEM LABORATORIES. IN THE YEAR 1993 THIS CORPORATION WAS SOLD TO THE CORPORATION NOVELL. IN THE YEAR 1994 SOME EMPLOYEES OF NOVELL FORMED THE CORPORATION CALDERA SYSTEMS INTERNATIONAL, WHICH BEGAN TO DISTRIBUTE AN UPSTART OPERATING SYSTEM KNOWN AS LINUX. IN THE YEAR 1995 NOVELL SOLD THE UNIX SOFTWARE CODES TO SCO. IN THE YEAR 2001 OCCURRED A SEPARATION OF SCO, AND THE SCO BRAND NAME AND UNIX CODES WERE ACQUIRED BY THE CALDERA SYSTEMS INTERNATIONAL, AND IN THE FOLLOWING YEAR THE CALDERA SYSTEMS INTERNATIONAL WAS RENAMED SCO GROUP, OF WHICH I CURRENTLY SERVE AS CHIEF EXECUTIVE OFFICER.
MY ASSOCIATES AND I OF THE SCO GROUP ARE THEREFORE THE FULL AND RIGHTFUL OWNERS OF THE OPERATING SYSTEM SOFTWARES KNOWN AS UNIX. OUR ENGINEERS HAVE DISCOVERED THAT NO FEWER THAN SEVENTY (70) LINES OF OUR VALUABLE AND PROPRIETARY SOURCE CODES HAVE APPEARED IN THE UPSTART OPERATING SYSTEM LINUX. AS YOU CAN PLAINLY SEE, THIS GIVES US A CLAIM ON THE MILLIONS OF LINES OF VALUABLE SOFTWARE CODES WHICH COMPRISE THIS LINUX AND WHICH HAS BEEN SOLD AT GREAT PROFIT TO VERY MANY BUSINESS ENTERPRISES. OUR LEGAL EXPERTS HAVE ADVISED US THAT OUR CONTRIBUTION TO THESE CODES IS WORTH AN ESTIMATED ONE (1) BILLION U.S. DOLLARS.
UNFORTUNATELY WE ARE HAVING DIFFICULTY EXTRACTING OUR FUNDS FROM THESE COMPUTER SOFTWARES. TO THIS EFFECT I HAVE BEEN GIVEN THE MANDATE BY MY COLLEAGUES TO CONTACT YOU AND ASK FOR YOUR ASSISTANCE. WE ARE PREPARED TO SELL YOU A SHARE IN THIS ENTERPRISE, WHICH WILL SOON BE VERY PROFITABLE, THAT WILL GRANT YOU THE RIGHTS TO USE THESE VALUABLE SOFTWARES IN YOUR BUSINESS ENTERPRISE. UNFORTUNATELY WE ARE NOT ABLE AT THIS TIME TO SET A PRICE ON THESE RIGHTS. THEREFORE IT IS OUR RESPECTFUL SUGGESTION, THAT YOU MAY BE IMMEDIATELY A PARTY TO THIS ENTERPRISE, BEFORE OTHERS ACCEPT THESE LUCRATIVE TERMS, THAT YOU SEND US THE NUMBER OF A BANKING ACCOUNT WHERE WE CAN WITHDRAW FUNDS OF A SUITABLE AMOUNT TO GUARANTEE YOUR PARTICIPATION IN THIS ENTERPRISE. AS AN ALTERNATIVE YOU MAY SEND US THE NUMBER AND EXPIRATION DATE OF YOUR MAJOR CREDIT CARD, OR YOU MAY SEND TO US A SIGNED CHECK FROM YOUR BANKING ACCOUNT PAYABLE TO "SCO GROUP" AND WITH THE AMOUNT LEFT BLANK FOR US TO CONVENIENTLY SUPPLY.
KINDLY TREAT THIS REQUEST AS VERY IMPORTANT AND STRICTLY CONFIDENTIAL. I HONESTLY ASSURE YOU THAT THIS TRANSACTION IS 100% LEGAL AND RISK-FREE.
http://saveie6.com/
In the original IBM lawsuit it occurred to me that it isn't SCO that's going to be using the Chewbacca defence after all, but IBM. After all, isn't it wookies that rip people's arms off if they lose? ;-)
"'I pass the test,' she said. 'I will diminish, and go into the West, and remain Galadriel.'"
- JRR Tolkien.
Personally I think SCO has chosen to craft their business model after an urban legend.
Travis
Yep... the day just wouldn't be the same without a SCO story, to bad it didn't show up in the morning with my coffee.
Their IP "theories" threaten everyone - which is why I don't think Microsoft is really behind all this. MS has used BSD code a lot - and under McBride's warped view SCO probably owns that, too. Of course, MS will feed this dragon as long as it's trying to eat Linux, but SCO would turn on MS, too.
How long until SCO sues the RIAA for infringing on its patented process of public relations?
There won't be an SCO after IBM is done with them. So it doesn't matter. How about a more interesting story like the this
Jeff Bezos will be suing SCO for violating Amazon.com's patent on frivolous litigation. However, it looks like the patent might be rescended because their is too much prior art.
Wh47 d1d j00 541, 31337 15n't t3h r0xor5 ne m0r3???
SCO has proof positive!
Timeo idiotikOS et dona ferentes
I can't wait for SCO to accuse *BSD of infringing SCO's IP (or whatever SCO is calling it these days)...
These are the toddler's property laws, but could equally apply to SCO.
If I like it - it's mine.
If it's in my hand - it's mine.
If I can take it from you - it's mine.
It I had it a little while ago - it's mine.
If it's mine, it must never appear to be yours in any way.
If I'm doing or building something - all the pieces are mine.
If it looks just like mine - it is mine.
If I saw it first - it's mine.
If you are playing with something and you put it down -
it automatically becomes mine.
If it's broken - it's yours!
I've got a fever and the only prescription is more COBOL.
This scared the hell outta me:
"much like they claim JFS is".
The first time I saw it I thought it's JSF (Joint Strike Fighter), although it would be cool to have a servier able to fly at mach speeds.
Not to make you paranoid, but it looks like someone is purposely stalking you around and modding you down all the time.
Jesus Christ Fuck! When is someone going to lob a mortar into the SCO offices and put an end to this fucking insanity?!!??!
There is a fine line between being a cultivated citizen and being someone else's crop. - A. J. Patrick Liszkie
The response will be that Microsoft will donate enough campaign money to invade all three countries for being 'communist'. And they'll be serious.
-Libertarian secular transhumanist
Reminds me of a scene from Fast Times at Ridgemont high, where Jeff Spicoli has a pizza pie delivered to class. When the professor fumes at why he's disrupting his class time, Spicolli retorts "If, like, I'm here, and like, you're here, does'nt that make that our time?"
;)
With SCO's asshat logic, McBide must be and alumin of that same school or a long lost relative of Spicolli.
P.S. The professor agrees with his obtuse student, and proceeds to hand a out a piece of the pie to all the students.
They could have just used Linux if they wanted an alternative but now they realize that companies like SCO are in Linux picture so they want something of their own.....
Or maybe Linux is a kernel, and not an operating system. Then, they can use the Linux kernel and build an entire operating system on top of it.
Or just use BSD. Er, excuse me, I meant OSX.
Dacels Jewelers can't be trusted.
I wrote a paper on the subject of SGI donating XFS after interviewing someone there at the time they made their announcement (~May 20, 1999). I just looked up the paper and found the following quote:
"Currently, SGI is clearing the source code of any legal restrictions; it expects to be able to make the code openly available by the end of the summer. "
Ensuring they were free-and-clear to donate XFS under an open source license was *not* an afterthought for SGI. There was concern among all the major UNIX vendors of IP entanglement with Linux, and SGI was the first to openly pledge to donate a chunk of their core UNIX technology. (IBM donated some non-core stuff earlier, and core stuff like JFS later.)
SCO's claim that XFS or JFS are derivative works of SVR4/5 remains, to me, highly dubious.
Too bad for SGI, the last thing they need these days is lawsuits. SCO can't hope for a lot of money, but maybe they're hoping for weaker resistance?
--LP
Not to be excessively paranoid, but SGI makes a great strategic choice for SCO to sue.
They, unlike IBM, don't have buckets of cash in the bank to throw at a legal defense. If SCO can force SGI to do their bidding and potentially spit out some documentation that makes IBM's case look bad, they will be at a better position to take on IBM.
Gentoo Sucks
Aight...whos with me to go deliver a high "impact" package to the heads of SCO?
One fact not mentioned in the article that would support SGI being the next target is the malloc code they claimed was infringing at this years SCOForum was copyrighted SGI
Second, in an August presentation at which SCO detailed some of its complaints about Linux code, Sontag described SGI file system software called XFS in a list of "examples of significant infringing derivative works" contributed to versions 2.4 or 2.5 of the heart, or kernel, of Linux.
One of the examples in the presentation linked to by the article, was of course the SGI copyrighted malloc implementation.
Hey man, got a dollar?
Speaking at Defcon 12 - Credit Card Networks Revisted: Pen
..when you're the one suing. Only defendants use a defense. Instead of watching South Park, you need to watch more Law And Order.
Must not remember the 80's, huh? Not a particularly fun time.
I suggest you look a little more into the Iran/Contra affair and its legality before making such reckless comparisons.
I have always been somewhat suspicious that there is a significant SCO-Microsoft connection, but the possibility that SGI is next on their hit-list just increases my worry.
SGI is a company that MS has every reason in the world to want to crush. They have traditionally been a major Unix vendor, they produce high-end graphics workstations that compete directly with popular Wintel solutions, and at one point they spurned Microsoft by dropping an ill-fated line of x86 workstations. And, making matters even worse (for SGI; better for MS), SGI is already suffering financially. This would be a great time for MS to crush them under their heel.
It is entirely possible that MS is pulling some strings here. SGI's target market and SCO's are wholly different, and I really don't see any reason why they (as opposed to HP/Digital/Compaq or any other Unix vendor) would be a real target. It just seems odd. SGI builds graphics workstations, and SCO provides general-purpose workhorse Unix OSes to businesses. Unless MS were involved, why would SCO pick on SGI in particular?
Honey, I shrunk the Cygwin
Bishop: What happen?
....
Escher: Someone set up us the bomb
Pratt: We get signal
Bishop: What!
Pratt: Main screen turn on.
Bishop: It's you!!
McBride: How are you gentlemen!!
McBride:: All your source are belong to us
McBride:: You are on the way to destruction
Bishop: What you say?
McBride: You have no chance to survive make your time
McBride:: Ha ha ha
Pratt: Captain!!
Captain: Take off every 'SUG'!!
Captain: Move 'SUG'.
Captain: For great justice.
If parts of quantum theory holds true, all possibilies exist in alternate universes, therefore SCO must own this IP if they can correctly access the correct universe, IE construct a temporal rift and merge our universe with the SCO universe to demonstrate this ownership. Of course, if they mistakenly open the wrong rift, ravenous space zombies will devour them. But I think this is a risk well worth taking in order to protect IP rights. After all, Linux is STEALING and doesn't that justify just about anything?
SCO OpenServer is quite broken, and they have yet to give it away.
You can't judge a book by the way it wears its hair.
Ah..my daily /. SCOverdose
....."
Yet more lawsuits...hmmm...hey wait, there is someone left to sue? Who haven't they sued?!?
"OK, can everybody who is getting sued by SCO move over to this side please!!!"
<<shuffle shuffle shuffle>>
"Ok, so what does that leave?"
"Ah, Mr. Gates, as expected...and who is that hiding behind you there?"
"Why...it's
Side note: IMO, Reagan was one of the better Presidents in my lifetime/recollection.
But let me guess, you are suffering from the same problems as Reagan. Rose colored glasses, and absolutly not thinking processes?
If SCO can invalidate the BSD settlement, then SCO can potentially claim ownership of much of the BSD-derived code in the kernel. Now that would present problems!
The only counter argument to this is that SCO has already "blessed" much of the BSD-derived code by stating that the 2.2 kernel series are clean.
The real "Libtards" are the Libertarians!
Funny. Although the way things are headed. The question will not be: who are they suing next, but who are they NOT suing?
A change in Darl's approach might be needed soon.
Even with the latest announcement threatening to litigate, SCO's stock price is not up. Perhaps investors are finally wising up now that Darl and his fellow execs have already dumped most of their stock.
Hey, it's possible!
" When they're done with SGI they'll probably track down Ken Thompson and try to claim that he somehow infringed their IP by writing UNIX in the first place. After all, anything and everything to do with UNIX is clearly SCO's by god-given right. "
The fact that they haven't been suing the BSD's (a point that crowd is vocal about ) kind of shoots that path down.
If McBride gets capped, the FBI will be knocking on your door my friend.
What's mine is mine. What's yours is negotiable.
I'm mean SGI is not doing that well themselves, just look at the number of people they laid off. They're hanging in there, but I doubt they have loads of cash. At most SCO could get IRIX, and who buys IRIX new these days?
Only 'flamers' flame!
Does slashdot hate my posts?
The company has shown a recent preference for more moderate courses of action, such as sending invoices to Linux users rather than taking them to court.
Wow. How bad must you behave until sending out invoices to end users, without backing up your claims by any substantial public explanations, is considered a "moderate course of action"???
Yet more proof the sco people (sic) have been hitting ye olde crack pipe a little to hard. WTF do they expect to get out of sgi anyway? I mean, like, is there even anyone left there? Let alone anything of value. What's next? sco is going to start sueing random homeless people? Hell, this may even be better for sco, they might get a few returnable bottles or cans.........
IBM started it!
Chris Sontag - Senior Vice President and General Manager, SCOsource
so little time. How will they fit in time to dump their stock? Priorities and all that.
Cmon. Admit it. You thought about doing this but decided to be mature. I can't believe I got this name.
... Morons...
For a moment I thought you wrote Mormons
Then I noticed that it really was Morons...
Then I realized that maybe I read it right the first time - SCO are both Mormons and Morons.
(Nothing against Mormons)
http://www.sco.com/products/authentication/
Used to have the awesome IT guy with the Red Hat, which was since photoshopped out, which has since been replaced with a photo of a woman. B-)
I have 3656.9 Bogomips. How many Bogomips do you have?
No, we all owe Ozzy Osbourne $699 per eye because we all read the comment.
infested with jello like fishes no melotron wishes
'SCO Darl McBride'
'IBM-scarred clod'
Seems SCO Group's new false invoice issuance for linux users and dsitributors make sit an ideal candidate for a RICO suit..
Is this OPneSource's next legal strategy?
Don't Tread on OpenSource
What, exactly, does SGI have left to bleed?
Has anyone at SCO actually LOOKED at SGI lately? They haven't exactly taken the last few years well.
Yea well our state AG is not up on them there technology issues. Roy is busy with the State Fair contracts the past couple of years and simpley does not have the time nor resources to deal with this 'white collar' stuff.
Everyone, even SCO concedes that one of the prime reason for suing IBM is to get bought out. SGI probably doesn't have that sort of cash, especially now that SCO's stock has jumped.
"SGI will devolve elements of its proprietary software and operating system Irix, such as its XFS journalling file system,to Linux as soon as it clears the legal roadblocks surrounding the intellectual property.
That said, I'm at a loss to explain how SGI stuffed things like that ancient malloc.c into Linux. Perhaps things got sloppy or it was never noticed because someone had previously removed copyright notices? (Apparently this has been a problem at SCO as well, removing BSD license notices internally...)
You know, the ironic thing about this whole SCO uproar is that people have long bitched that the GPL was so viral... well look how viral the closed source SVR4/5 license apparently was!
--LP
P.S. A short history of XFS and Linux, Slashdot-style:
Here's a LinuxToday article and the original Slashdot thread covering that May 20, 1999 announcement.
Three months later, in August 1999, Slashdot covered that the XFS donation would be GPL (not just 'open source')
A year after that, the XFS beta arrived on Slashdot (September 2000), and
After two more years, XFS was merged into the Linux 2.5 kernel September 2002.
ummm....
"Archive-name: dec-faq/osf1 - Last-modified: Sun Jan 16 16:51:33 EST 1994 - Version: 1.6" [snip]
"The "Alpha AXP Freeware CD," which is shipped with the DEC OSF/1
software distribution, has many popular programs in both source and
binary form. The current Alpha Freeware CD-ROM can also be ordered
from DECdirect, order number QA-0PSAA-H8. The price is $12 US.
The Freeware CD is mounted on some Internet machines, including
gatekeeper.dec.com and ftp.Uni-Koeln.de, for anonymous FTP.
Many programs are also available in ftp.ncsa.uiuc.edu:/DEC_Alpha.
The alpha-osf-managers archive (see below) also has some programs." [snip]
ever stop to think this is 'all' a diversion? - a soured os/2 developer
Since at least August, SCO have been floating the idea of sending invoices to Linux users. It's even been reported, seemingly incorrectly, back in August, that SCO was beginning to send invoices. The invoice story has been taken up with a vengence in the last few days, for example, here, here and here.
SCO Australia says the invoicing plan doesn't "ring true" and contradicts very recent strategy discussions. Unfortunately, SCO USA's Blake Stowell, doesn't seem to have yet responded to SCO Australia's request for clarification. SCO Australia also says that they're unsure about the question of invoices being sent in the US even though there are reports on the web [examples: here, here and here] about just such a thing being planned.
Why is SCO suing SG1? Does the stargate run linux?
" Aight...whos with me to go deliver a high "impact" package to the heads of SCO?"
You're going to hit them with a fruitcake?
Lindon UTAH, September 6th - SCO Group, Inc. (NASDAQ:SCOX) announced a three trillion dollar law suit against SCO's Australian subsiduary today.
Senior Vice President of SCO's licensing division, Chris Sontag, said "We have evidence of direct line-by-line copying and unauthorized derivative code of SCO's Unixware software, being present in Unixware. Unixware is, in material part, an unauthorized derivate of Unixware."
SCO Group, Inc. also announced a Unixware licensing program for those SCO Australia's users who were concerned about liability for violating SCO's IP rights. President and CEO, Darl McBride, said "SCO Australia's users should consult with counsel about their legal risks for using Unixware", and added "We have a solution that gets you clean, and keeps you out of the court room.".
SCO's Communications Director Blake Stowell, added that SCO is preparing to send invoices to SCO Australia's Unixware users.
Senior Analyst at the Yankee Group, Laura DiDio, queried why SCO Australia is not indemnifying their customers against SCO's IP claims.
SCOX stock was up $0.76 (7.4%) today as a result of the news, and upon rumors that IBM contained the letters S, C, and O in the longer version of their company name.
In a CNBC commentary, Jonathan Cohen of JHC Capital Management, commented that he expects SCO to earn $1.33 per share in the next 12 months, independent of any money received due to litigation. Cohen also pointed out that the International Business Maxines Corporation may also be infringing on SCOX's proprietary letter X.
IBM declined to comment on this story.
I suspect that we are witnessing the beggining of the standard attacks that will be taking place soon. MS has done their shared source approach which basically says that ppl can look, but do not touch or steal. If any of that code ends up in Linux, it would enable MS to start a law suit against Linux.
I think that we need to start doing some proactive type action against this.
I prefer the "u" in honour as it seems to be missing these days.
Is that you, Darl? Tsk tsk tsk... I thought you were through trolling Slashdot for jollies.
People who say "sheeple" have about as much sophistication as an AOL user, and in fact are probably actually AOL users.
RIAA is countersuing SCO as the only legitimate owner of TCP/IP. Not only SCO is the owner of this evel protocol but it also was careless about it - so the protocol was stolen and included in all major OS-es including MS Windows, Un*x, Linux, OpenVMS, MVS, etc This evel protocol enables criminals to share copyrighted material over the Internet (which SCO in cooperation with the former vice President Gore invented)
If enithin kan gow rong it whil. (Murfey)
Then, they can use the Linux kernel and build an entire operating system on top of it.
;)
Err.. Linux *is* the kernel, but the whole suit of GNU tools is the Operating System around that.
They could just use GNU's Hurd as a kernel... oh, wait, Debian already does it
What's next... OSX? BMW? CIA? ATF?
At least MS is safe. THIS time.
...spike
Ewwwwww, coconut...
Shouldn't SCO worry about winning the suits that they've already filed (or have been filed against them) before going after more people? Or is it just another sign that SCO has nothing and needs to do as much as they can before they are finished for good?
-------
"Every artist is a cannibal, every poet is a thief."
I suppose we could all buy shares in SCO and use their next stockholders meeting to convince them to stop their legal actions against code now in Linux.
You are right, but MS has already crushed SGI.
MS has obtained a cross-license to all SGI's graphics patents, and OpenGL is no longer a threat. A mild concern perhaps. MS buried their joint "Farenheit" high-level graphics API effort with SGI, killing it. MS has announced dropping support of OpenGL on future OSes. Development of OpenGL 2.0 is really the baby of 3Dlabs (or whoever bought them out; I forget), not SGI, which shows you how behind the curve SGI is on pushing OpenGL these days. OpenGL's survival depends more on John Carmack pushing IHVs to keep using it than SGI, and other than OpenGL, SGI has not presented MS with a platform threat.
MS may want to crush Linux and/or IBM, but SGI? Not even in the same ballpark.
The reason SCO is picking on SGI is because of NUMA.
SGI has been dumping their NUMA scalability crown jewels into Linux (unlike all other conventional Unix vendors who are keeping that stuff in their high-end proprietary OS+hardware combos) and this is a significant impediment to selling UnixWare as "the premier scalable x86 Unix". Off the shelf UnixWare supports up to 8 processors today and SCO made a stab at doing NUMA stuff once upon a time, but SGI's NUMA-Linux has tons more R&D behind it and is going 64-way.
Three or four years ago, UnixWare was actually functionally superior to Linux (I know, I know, hard to believe but it's true.) But any margin of superiority then has greatly diminished or been overtaken. This is a real problem if SCO can't keep up with the R&D dumped into Linux by the open source community plus IBM plus SGI, etc. So SCO has gone legal. It's a rational move for them. Their vacillating arguments and tenuously-novel notion of derivative works don't bode well for their long term success however.
--LP
Hehe, bring 'em on. If you're going to pick a F/S to attack, XFS is a perfect choice for SCO. It was developed independently, and I'd love to see SCO find one shread of old unix F/S tech besides the word 'vnode' in there. You go SCO! [Disclaimer, I only worked with the project back when it was an SGI-only system, who knows what happened during the Linux port].
.1% or less of the FS code involved). The rest of XFS is a huge original undertaking. There's nothing quite like it (B-trees everywhere).
I think someone at SCO noticed that SGI had a SysV license (the later versions of SGI's IRIX had a good hunk of licensed SysV in there - same goes for the Solaris folks, I think everyone moved to SysV in the early 90's when it looked like 'the thing' to do).
It'll be a good stretch for SCO to claim that XFS is a derived work in any real form. The only overlapping code would be the vnode entry points and some things related to the buffer cache, and those you really have no choice but to implement the SysV interfaces and that's easy to prove (maybe
A troll? A troll??? Are you nuts? It's freakin' brilliant!
SGI suffers because they changed strategic directions
at least 12 times in 3 years.
They were the standard in high end graphics, before
they wanted to build; killer database servers, high end
web servers, NT desktops, Linux desktops and
Supercomputers.
They pose no threat to MS, or anyone else.
In fact ignoring the SCO suit, they will most likely collapse
in 18 months anyway.
having McBride as dinner to CG velociraptors
how long until
For those who don't like streaming, here's a direct link
It's gold, Jerry! Pure gold!
I beleive that if you scan the posts of the previous SCO slashdot posting, an astute reader linked SCO press releases and/or rumors to SCO executive's scheduled stock sale dates. This reader predicted that a new SCO story would surface around Monday the 8th to coinside with a planned sale. Hmm... could it be...
Are you suggesting that Linux developers will find Microsoft's code so irresistable that they will just have to steal it? If so, let them get sued.
"Shared Source" is very standard practice in the industry - Sun, HP and others all do it.
Lets see... morning coffee... morning donut... morning SCO story... ... there can't be more than one person that actually comments their code, can there? In fact, they must be shitting their pants.
I'm so glad to see that they've landed on their feet. Normally I would have to pay top dollar for bullshit that rich and strong. Let us put aside any negative feelings we might have toward them and simply put flame to some feces on their doorsteps. After all
This Comment was generated with the Comment-O-Matic for SCO Stories.
StickMan
www.rageagainst.net
If they can gain the control they pretend to have over every technology ever implemented in Unix by any Unix licencee, that in itself is humongous.With that control, I think every OS vendor in existance would have to pay them licence fees, including Microsoft and Apple.
However, the chances that SCO will be awarded control over billion upon billions of valuable technology from almost every major computing company, not produced by themselves at all, is none. Quite simply
Live today, because you never know what tomorrow brings
just forget about SCO for the time being and stop giving them all of this free publicity. When everyone continues to argue the point it tends to imply that SCO does in fact have something worthy of an argument. Hell, if someone told you that the moon was made of cheese....you would probably simply ignore them until they could prove as such. Until then, the moon is still made of....err...rocks and dust?
"The strong will do what they want, the weak will do what they must."
-Thucydides
First I admit keeping this copy in my backpack becouse of the really ummm cool artwork on the front with the lady clad in diamonds.
(Drool)
Ok... anyway
Wired: Sept 2003 page 80 bottom half artical title "Will This Man Kill Linux"
Darl McBride says (while anwering a question)
"It's really interesting to see what happends when people see the code, when they see how blatant the copying is."
What is intresting is that so far only McBrides experts appear to be able to find this code. Well that and people who can't actually read source code seam able to find them.
I find it intresting that the experts can't be located. I find it intresting that much of the code in question can be found elsewhere. I find it intresting that the features in question are property of other companys.
To date:
The features in question make Linux an enterprise class system, Came from IBM, are primaraly for SGI hardware & Have something to do with 20 to 30 year old public domain code.
To me it appears blairingly obveous SCO is just suing anyone they have balls enough to sue.
Hay good thing they aren't suing the little guys becouse I really like Lunix.
I don't actually exist.
SCO has filed a lawsuit agains God and one against the estate of mother theresa.
Yup it's official. With this announcement, SCO has officially jumped the shark.
- Kate
"DNA is life. The rest is just translation."
So what are you suggesting?
what?
That seems a bit silly. What threat does SGI pose to Microsoft whatsoever? Don't you think they have bigger things they're concentrating on, like the countries converting to open source and the image of insecurity places like Slashdot are giving them? What purpose would crushing SGI serve? They don't care about that market.
"Sufferin' succotash."
A spokesperson for SCO said, "By leveraging innovative death and destruction technologies, content providers streamline compelling digital rights management solutions." In other words, dead men violate no copyrights.
Don't believe M$ is behind it? Then you didn't read a previous post which pointed to this article which points out the string of holding corporations pointing to Mrs Gates.
I used to wonder what was so holy about a silent night, now I have a child.
No, it's not me who is crazy. It's everybody else that is crazy!
Sounds exactly like what SCO is doing right now.
SGI was one of the most innovative UNIX vendors *ever*, SCO is one of the least innovative ones.
I should know, after using both of their products for multiple years. (hm, so let's see if I get this right, the networking package is optional ??? Ok, goodbye.)
MP3 Search Engine
SGI is a company that MS has every reason in the world to want to crush.
Actually I'd say that MS would want the opposite, to keep SGI in the game as long as possible. They are certainly a traditional unix vendor in that they tend to have very expensive and often lagging hardware. And IRIX itself has been lagging in many areas. MS can easily cite this as a "weakness" in Unix and coax those currently on it to move towards cheaper MS solutions.
The worst thing that could happen is that SGI goes under and suddenly orphans SGI customers. Instead of a gradual MS padded transition, now suddenly people cry out for a Unix solution and without a doubt Linux graphics workstations start gaining development rapidly. Even worse is that Linux can do everything from cheap cluster, to uber graphics workstation with hardly any retooling. Keeping some people on the SGI train and off of the Linux train is probably in their best interest. But as SGI gets deeper into Linux, it just might be better to snuff them out as well - but if SGI does stuff like introducint Unix code into Linux and messing everything up farther... it's probably a safer bet to let them live on and muddle things up as long as possible.
Check out all the companies M$ has taken control of, possesion of, or hold a major interest in.
http://www.vcnet.com/bms/departments/catalog/
Actually, I don't think I'm joking anymore. The only thing SCO seems to understand is threats to the wallet. So far they've been doing all the threatening, which is actually sort of reasonable since their wallets are so close to close to empty. However, the small bit of real cash in their wallets came from their few customers, and SCO is "proud" to list McDonalds as one of their major accounts.
How many Slashdotters eat at McDonalds? A boycott might be a serious threat!
Freedom = (Meaningful - Coerced) Choice != (Speech | Beer^2), and sad sock puppets' bad mods avail them naught.
2003 should be known as the year of lawsuites every one is sueing everyone anymore. maybe couse its couse companys cant make money any other way.
Even through they are not derived from Unix Sys V sources, there were certainly "inspired" from Unix and use "Unix concepts and methods.". Mind you, SCO has no patents on any these methods. But why limit themselves to traditional Unix when you have all the other 'nixs out there.
Has SCO even thought of the fact that the Unix interfaces themselves were codified into the POSIX standard? An open, approved standard that anyone can implement. Are they going to claim they own the POSIX standards body now?
Maybe McBride ought to pick a copy of "Just For Fun" by Linus Torvalds and read about how Linux came about. Man, if a filesystem implementation that ties into a Unix kernel a "derivative work", then the ext2, ext3, ReiserFS and every other filesystem builder out there is pretty much screwed.
Come on McBride, invoice me for a license! I even use the SMP code on my dual processor Sun boxes running SuSe. Got Red Hat and Debian too. As long as its on good quality bond, it will make excellent liner for my litter box.
#define malloc(X) getmain(X) - seriously, what are they smoking ?? xfs - is just an ( nice ) implementation of journaling file systems ( existed long before there was any Unix ) made by SGI, are they trying to own all the journaling file systems or are they claiming the name?? Journaling file systems existed long before Unix both in theory and in implementation. Malloc is just a name for a memory allocation procedure/macro - can/has been implemented n ways, even I did those before you can say Unix existed.
You're dead wrong. Its the open sores hippies who are exporting protected American computer technology to terrorists and nations which support terrorism. SCO is the only line of defense against a takeover by radical islam.
this is like the 5th time i have seen this posted, regarding sco. it was funny the first 3 times. way to be a karma whore, asshat
Oh yeah, SGI is just flush with cash, ripe for the picking...
buy/sell charts are unreliable. These are
tools used by beginner investors/traders
as an indication on how "big money"
is placing their bet. Not only thompson is
unreliable, but even if it was reliable it
would still mean very little. Just because
big money is buying a stock, it does not
automatically mean that they are betting the
stock will move higher -- someone could have
bought a huge blocks in order to hedge against other
bets (naked puts, or write calls) in order to limit their downside,
or they could have bought the blocks to complete
their market-maker formulas to profit only from
the bid/ask spread.
When someone finally snaps and takes that sniper shot at McBride or turns the SCO headquarters into a fireball, will they be considered a murderer, an assassin, or a hero?
Or will the world just shrug and be glad someone finally hired an exterminator?
After all, between SCO and the wrist-slaps Microsoft has been given, it's clear the US legal system is nothing but a toothless sham for sale to the highest bidder. Given SCO's real value, the bid isn't even that high.
I do not fail; I succeed at finding out what does not work.
Actually, by one measure of a company's size,SCO is already bigger than SGI.
SCO market cap: $209 million
SGI market cap: $194 million
Yeah, I know, we're all hoping that SCOX goes right back to $1 and their market cap goes back to $10 million. Or lower. But as of today, SCO is more valuable than SGI. (Barf!!)
There's truth to what you say. SGIs are mostly used for graphics, and most of the work is done on the card itself, which operates in what OpenGL and DirectX folks call "retained mode." And SGI have done an exceptional job of keeping the graphics hardware current!
:)
Ehh, depends on which market segment you're talking about. For the typical modeler or CAD person, a PC will have just as much power for a lower cost. SGI does still sell a lot of very high end gfx machines (dozens of graphical pipelines [pipe in sgi world means "gfx card", not a texel path within a gpu]) and machines with gobs of i/o for multiple streams of uncompressed HD. But SGI sells far more non-graphical supercomputers (Origin and Altix) than they do gfx systems.
SGI's Onyx2/Onyx3 InfiniteReality4 graphics have 11 GB of gfx ram to work with, great for vis-sim applications and massive texture roaming. Raw polygon performance isn't that impressive, but the rest of the abilities more than make up for it. The new Onyx4 UltimateVision is based on ATI FireGL. Both IR and UV can handle multiple gfx pipes in the same machine to drive multiple synced displays from the same machine without performance loss. Great for setups needing a dozen projectors and screens requiring software/hardware distortion correction (curved screens, hemisphere screens, etc) and edge blending. In the case of UV, mutliple GPUs can work together in several different ways for greater performance. But for a single-monitor, single GPU user, a PC will give you just as much power for a fraction of the cost.
But as a general purpose UNIX, it's pretty much dirty pants.
For a desktop OS, yeah, the GUI is pretty oldschool but does still have some neat goodies (www.nekochan.net). IRIX itself as a flavor of UNIX is pretty decent. Recent versions of IRIX 6.5.x have the security holes fixed and much newer versions of various components since the iniital release of 6.5.0. There are lots of awesome builtin features for performance and activity monitoring, the OS is made for app turning. Guaranteed rate I/O, realtime features, native XFS, native OpenGL... the OS is pretty smooth.
Its got to be the 3 character corporation name. "SGI" is not exactly "SCO" but their discovery teams found that in order to do business as "SGI" they would need to use 3 letters AND it starts with an "S"..
Conincience? They think not! They MUST have stolen this character sequence from SCO!
They must PAY!
....move along....nothing to see here....
Diplomacy: the art of saying "Nice doggy" until you can find a rock.
~REZ~ #43301. Who'd fake being me anyway?
If you want something - even if I threw it behind the couch and walked away to go eat yummy crunchies from the cat box when daddy had to go answer the phone, it's MINE!
Get off my launchpad!
The longer this has gone on, the more SCO seems to reach out to Unix vendors, the gladder I am that Bill Joy created the core of the Unix I use, BSD.
I do wonder, muse really, sometimes. Is SCO working for Apple? Linux, though IBM, and SGI's Unix OS are being threatened and it seems that the one real winner, at least a bit in the Unix arena, is Apple whose Unix OS is based on BSD and is according to Bill Joy immune from SCO's actions. Personally, I doubt SCO has a case. But this is exactly the sort of stuff that companies and their proxies do to throw the competition off balance and create market growth opportunity.
Like most OS X users, I can afford to just sit back and watch the fun as those companies wanting "free" Linux distributions now have to content with the risk (and that isn't a joke) of an SCO victory that would cost the free Linux community money. Meanwhile, Apple advances its OS X strategy by readying Panther with not a whisper of a threat from SCO.
Is Jobs behind this?
Yes, I'm joking. But the stakes are very high. At worst, Linux is no longer free which ruins its business model. With companies looking for alternatives to MS, and with Linux no longer free, and with other Unix OS's falling to SCO, wouldn't Apple be the real winner?
Let us go to the stars, dream new dreams, and renew the embers of hope that have long since grown cold.
Is there anyway we can convince Al Qaeda that SCO is an integral part of our national security infrastructure?
I mean, why not? According to Darl, all the other terrorists are after them.
because SCI looks a lot like SCO.
http://mediagoblin.org/
Sir, The federal government will now storm your room because your a lazy computer person that has potential to cause harm to the worlds computers.. oh yeah and SCO said you threatend them illegally.
TRUTH-
Read over the articles Darl McBride tells how open source supports terrorism and how it is bad for national security
Apple Sues SCO for unlicensed use of Jobs RDF (Reality-Distortion-Field)
Apple spokesperson Marsha Lile explains the basis behind the suit:
"SCO has been generating an awful lot of press lately while not contributing anything to the industry or the state of the art. As a company, they're irrelevant, as a technology player, they're a has-been, but the most damning evidence comes from their ridiculous outbursts of pure, unwavering, shitfaced, insanity. It is therefore the opinion of Apple Computer -- and we feel confident -- the State of California District Court System, that SCO is illegally using our technology and must cease and desist immediately."
Lile also added that the new PowerMac G5 would beat up SCO in a fight, wirelessly.
My opinions are my own, and do not necessarily represent those of my employer.
SCO cares only for money. This is all part of Osama's plan. Osama bought the other license.
(1)Attack the US
(2)Buy canopy group
(3)Sue IBM
(4)Kill all the citizens of the USA and all the other jews
(5)Profit
Enough facts are now known about various aspects of this SCO fiasco that -- with the appearance of this article -- it is impossible not to conclude that several arms of the IT trade press, ZDNet and C|Net among them, are deliberately misleading their IT readership about these events. They are also contributing to the advancement of possible criminal activity... hopefully in ignorance.
In no way does this failing $70 million company deserve the continuing coverage and respect that it is getting from the trade press. When this all started it was perhaps possible to believe that SCO actually had a case. But they have long since transformed into the biggest press relations hoax since the Raelian "clone" episode.
We have been presented with months of empty threats, bogus proof, frivolous legal theories, and behavior indistinguishable from fraud, extortion, and racketeering. Yet the press treats this as something IT professionals need to know about and should pay attention to.
Nonsense. It is a charade. It is either a stock-manipulation scheme, as Computerworld uncovered, or it is the behavior of crazy people who do not care who they hurt with their ever-wilder accusations and threats.
But with this article, we have reached a new low. Now we are presented with the "SCO threat" article bereft of any actual behavior by SCO. The principles have been quiet lately, so to take up the slack, the trade press is actually making up threats that SCO never made, and waving them around as the latest scare stories.
Whjat does an article like this do to SGI's business? What justification can there be for ZDNet and C|Net and Business Week to put this kind of cloud over SGI without even a single direct quote from SCO backing up this claim?
This is way over the line. The dishonsty and desire to mislead apparent in what the trade press is doing here will not be forgotten. If they wish to toss their credibility on SCO's altar for no apparent gain, no one can stop them. But they will suffer for it in the long run. I will never again believe half of what I read in these rags. This whole episode has been very eye-opening for me.
Currently the whole SCO business is working as a smokescreen that captures a lot of oss developers/peoples time and energy, this is probably taking our focus from the list of things that needs to be fixed for linux and the bsd's to stay ahead or aleast not long after the other competitors. Just as we speak right now microsoft is probably gnawing away (or atleast trying) market share from linux and the unices while SCO is keeping all our eyes elsewhere.
/.) you can always write documentation or configure things so they look nicer and then resubmit the new configs to the developers so that the changes get spread.
So stop giving a rats ass about what darl mcbride is up to, it's just been a lot of barking from that puppy and the energy complaining about him and the company he work's for could be better used for code/documentation or userfriendlier configurations, because even if you don't know how to program your way out of a wet-paperbag (not that it's very common here on
So ask yourself, what have you done for gnu or opensource software lately, and what COULD you do?
If we all start helping we could keep our advantage against windows and some closed source unices but the current state of opensource software wasn't created by flaming and complaining on how many faults our "competitors" have, but by acutally producing something better.
I think they are working themselves up to show that Windows XP, which I think came from Digital Unix is a derivative work of some obscure Unix code which SCO owns. Therefore SCO really owns all Microsoft products. I'd hurry up and buy SCO shares while they still are cheap!
There arises from a bad and unapt formation of words a wonderful obstruction to the mind. (Francis Bacon)
...A frustrated man will be wriggling in his straight jacket, headbutting the wall of his padded cell, ranting 'I own this, I own you, it's all mine.'
"Another strong dose of trancs for Mr McBride nurse."
There was nothing wrong with them putting that malloc.c, ancient or not, in the code. Code doesn't grow old.
Perhaps things got sloppy or it was never noticed because someone had previously removed copyright notices?
Yes - there was a problem over copyright notices.
Cheers, Andy!
Andy Rabagliati
"Terrorist."
Mark my words.
Let OSDL buy SCO, with the money from SGI and IBM, then they can come after Microsoft and sue them for those alleged infringements mentioned earlier here at /.
;)
Just a joke
A stupid memory allocator from the K&R book? These crooks seriously need to get bitch slapped.
I've been studying computer science for a few years, and wrote my first C programs under Linux.
....
I used printf to write "hello world".
Should I call my lawyers, cause I'm scared SCO may come after me
MEEEEP!
Three or four years ago, UnixWare was actually functionally superior to Linux
Clearly Linux was/is a superior webserver and has been for some time. Furthermore, if you were running a single-CPU standard-hardware PC and your app ran on Unix, it was on par or perhaps in some sense you can articulate, superior. (For my purposes 10 years ago, Linux was superior because of its price, although I would be somewhat hesitant to consider that a "functional" feature of Linux except in the broadest sense.)
By functionally superior, I mean in the high-end Unix sense. For example, UnixWare had pretty good support for 4-8 way SMP with finer-grained locking when Linux had locks around huge chunks of the kernel. UnixWare had extensive reliability features used more for big-iron systems: clustering features, journaled filesystems (ext3/reiser were in development and still too buggy for production) and the ability to hot-swap CPUs and other things that weren't available on Linux. Etc.
It's a rational move for them.
I agree with all the arguments you make here that JFS/XFS/RCU/NUMA are components, ie distinguishable/distinct and separable (although NUMA less so) from the originating SVR4/5 OS owned by SCO. Presuming there is no overlapping copyright claim, rationally they should not be considered as derivative in a legal sense imho. I wouldn't go so far as to say SCO's legal argument is *irrational,* but I would consider it tenuous and novel.
I was trying to make a distinction between a rational business strategy versus a rational legal argument. As an x86 Unix vendor, SCO has never had an adequate answer to Linux/BSD, and after five years of trying various things (be a high-end complementary product, embrace and resell Linux) their revenues continue to drop. In light of that, a tenuous legal argument is a rationally (note: not ethically) better business strategy than doing the same old thing trying to sell UnixWare/OpenServer. "Hmm, we can't get customers, but perhaps we can convince a judge/jury to give us money." For better or worse, I think the odds are much higher of SCO getting $100 million from a judge or jury or settlement than by getting $100 million in new x86 Unix customers. From this vantage point, perhaps the lawsuit was inevitable whatever the merits were.
If your point is that without a convincing legal argument, they don't have a strong business strategy, I'd also agree. Having your success dependent on a judge/jury is not a good place to me. It's not a strong strategy either way.
--LP
Sure, there is nothing new under the sun and PCs are just recapitulating Unix technology which recapitulates mainframe technology.
But enlighten me, did IBM's storage directors or VMS CPU voting allow you to write an application with normal calls to allocate memory and then, under the covers use memory associated with other, 'distant' processors or peripherals? In a nutshell, that is the point of NUMA. If not, I think we are talking apples and oranges here. Both fruits, but not the same fruit.
If the malloc.c code was written by dmr/ken in 1977 for AT&T and thus copyrighted by them, and that copyright was transferred to SCO and given to SGI under non-disclosure agreements of some kind, wouldn't it be wrong for SGI to distribute that code without a contract explicitly allowing them to do so?
I suppose SGI can say "we snagged that malloc.c from a BSD distribution who invented each line and variable name independently". But they cannot hold the typical alternate defense that AT&T illegally copied the code from BSD, since dmr/ken are apparently the progenitors.
And if SGI snagged it from BSD while BSD copied it, while it may be BSD's fault, SGI would remain legally liable as far as I can tell (IANAL). We'll see.
It's high time for tort reform. In the amount of time it will take to get SCO's lawsuits thrown out and to countersue SCO for their false charges, people connected to open source will be making the lawyers very rich. If there was a "loser pays" provision in the law, SCO would have thought twice before starting this fight.
The malloc code is present in the Kernigan and Ritchie's book about the C language.
I don't have my copy at hand, but it is a very old book.
-- Juanco
I mean, how could you?
but you can't get blood out of a turnip
(summary: S&P downgrades SGI to "negative", rates corporate credit as CCC-, states they have $141M cash on hand and are maxed out on their lines of credit).
They never learn.
pseudo mod "+1 Obscure Chuckle Funny"
...since a prosecution of SGI would instantly turn into a reference to the IBM case and grind to a halt until 2005. TSG would probably do it for the publicity if they can't find anything else handy to pump their stock with. It seems to have been remarkably steady at USD$16 for the last 3 days.
Got time? Spend some of it coding or testing
Are you suggesting that Linux developers will find Microsoft's code so irresistable that they will just have to steal it? If so, let them get sued.
No, I am guessing that MS is counting on their code getting into Linux and that is why they are trying to push it. "Shared Source" is very standard practice in the industry - Sun, HP and others all do it.
Not quite. In fact, they only share on Unix. No where else. The old days of true sharing is only seen in the OSS world.
I prefer the "u" in honour as it seems to be missing these days.
I remember hearing about a tool that looks through compiled code. The idea was the same as rsync in reverse. Basically, it checks not for differences but similarities. By developing a tool and running it over MS binary and Linux binary, we can find out where code suddenly shows up. In fact, I would suspect that if it were run over old MS stuff vs. a number of OSS binaries, it might just turn up more than people thought would happen.
I prefer the "u" in honour as it seems to be missing these days.
...it might get TSG a seat at the trial, but it ain't in line to bleed them any damages. Not that TSG are exactly walking the line WRT mitigating their own damages. They'd have to get a thoroughly bought judge to get any damages at all after the buggerising around they've been doing so far.
Got time? Spend some of it coding or testing
OMG!! Rewrite the Linux kernel, look what my reverse-rsync turned up!!!
...
Match windows.o linux.o
Line 528673492: MOV EAX, ECX
== Jez ==
Do you miss Firefox? Try Pale Moon.
Seriously, the very LAST thing we need is to encourage terrorist action in "support" of open source.
Wake up, get a life, and realize that no matter how much you might think you want it, it's not okay to say it. It doesn't matter whether you are joking or not. There are some comments that you need to learn to self-censor; this is one of them.
You don't want to be responsible for encouraging some whacko to actually go out and do it. If you think it seems that the US gov't isn't sympathetic to open source now, just see how they react after some loonie terrorist claims to have "done it all for open source." Just wait until membership in the FSF gets your house raided and your phone tapped...
The preceding comments reflect the author's personal opinion and are public domain, unless explicitly stated otherwise.